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FourAces, it never crossed my mind that you meant to be offensive and this thread confirms your good intentions. I think, though, that most any word that puts all members of an ethnic group into a single box based on a stereotype runs the risk of offending someone. To my mind, Asians are individuals and no doubt would like to be treated as such. Words that lump them all together overlook that individuality and may prove offensive. At least, that's how I've come to look at it. When I was growing up, I heard the word 'kraut' used to refer to Germans and I believe at one time it was intended to be highly offensive. Same for 'potato eaters' to mean the Irish. So I tend to avoid words like that. Besides, I'm half German and really dislike sauerkraut. Although my Irish half does indeed love me my potatoes. Reminds me of a running joke with an old friend that any sentence that begins with the phrase "You people" is not likely to have a happy ending.

Mindboggling, isn't it? I think we take a terrible risk when we vote for any party or individual that doesn't have a great deal of compassion. It's well more than half of my own voting decision. Anyone who thinks a government that doesn't actively look out for all of its citizens won't turn its back on him one day is living a pipe dream.

Get back here!

Perhaps he was admiring your sense of style.

Gratified to see the nuanced thoughtfulness in this thread. It seems so unusual these days, at least in this country. Of course the law will be black and white and I think the ethical actions of an adult toward a child, or any person with less power, are often best framed in black and white. But thought, analysis, and discussion have never been well-served by pretending that gray does not exist. When we look for the best answers and the best outcomes, I think we should use all the experience, insight and brainpower we can muster.

Doomsday hell And global fights Can now be done With bits and bytes

I'll sure miss you, Tomcal. I now wish I'd have commented on every one of your posts that I've enjoyed so much, as you'd have seen hundreds more thumbs up. Very best wishes in your continued adventures.

I'm very sorry this happened to your niece and to you and your family. You'll probably get good advice from the doctor involved and perhaps from a counsellor who is experienced in dealing with these situations. The only thing I would suggest in addition is to try to let your niece get back to being a little girl as quickly as possible. Certain things will have to be done, such as the hospital visit that you have planned. Hopefully, it will be handled with a minimum of fuss, bright lights, and drama. Perhaps your sister will think it's a good idea for your niece to see a counsellor. But I think there's sometimes a risk that your niece will be made to feel like an object with people poking and prodding her physically and emotionally. What's done is done, and she will need support, but there's no reason for that support to be invasive and intrusive. If your niece is made to feel like an oddity, and a victim, the trauma could be unnecessarily compounded. As her uncle, maybe the best thing you can do is hold your sister's hand and help keep her calm, and then take your niece out for ice cream. She's a child, and that's what she wants to be. If you can help her get back to that as soon as possible and help her start laughing and playing again, I think you'll be the best uncle ever.

I'd love to see somebody get pissed off enough to blow past Apple with even better technology. It will happen one day. Why not one day soon?

Perhaps with the flashing of the royal fundament that ship has already sailed. Good thing the lighting was subdued enough to blur out any regal dingleberries.

Tell me that's not a banana he's got in there!

You get your wish. And mine. He's staying in. The walk back I'm looking forward to is from all those Republicans who lambasted him in the past two days. Something tells me they will be tiptoeing very gingerly back to full support, rather than let the Senate seat go to a Democrat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Apparently, a bit more to this than meets the eye. According to Missouri law, if Akin exits the race by 5:00pm tomorrow, he can be replaced by another candidate. The Missouri Republican party would then have two weeks to name a replacement, and the replacement would have to file within twenty-eight days of Akin's exit. Without a special court order, if Akin doesn't bow out by tomorrow at 5:00pm, he remains the Republican candidate, complete with all his baggage. Seems that's why he's under such intense pressure to bow out at once. The head of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee called him today to say the Committee was pulling the $5 million budgeted for the Missouri race. And every Republican with a bullhorn seems to be aiming it in his direction. Akin says he's sticking with it. Interesting to see what happens next. Guess we won't have long to wait.

Hell, all the testosterone around here tonight, I bet you could plug up Joan Rivers!

And perhaps not too shabby from the get-go. Hey, Brutus! Hope you packed the sheepskin.

So, listen, Doctor, could you leave a little extra on the top and sides.

Having never won the lottery, I've spent plenty of time thinking about what I'd do if I did. First off, I'd give ninety percent of it away, some to friends and relatives, but most to charities. I'd probably turn it over to Jimmy Carter. He'd see it gets put to good use. Then I'd put the other ten percent in a fairly safe income-producing fund and draw a check every month. I'd try to spend it as fast as it came in and do stuff with my friends. Whatever there was in the kitty would get spent pretty quick. A crook would have to arrive at exactly the right moment to make off with the whole monthly stipend. And then I'd scrape by till the next month's check came in. Both in good times and not-so-good times, I've long taken to heart Thoreau's words: A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. If I ever had so much money left over that it gave me aggravation, I'd start giving more away till it didn't.

Suckrates, you speak of a world that I would really like to see. Not that we humans won't always be interested in who's boinking whom, but I'm thinking of a world where a more varied menu of sexual partners becomes fairly common. Fr'instance, I think it would be kind of hot if Lautner dated a girl and a boy - or two. In fact, do you think we might have the makings of a new breakout film for our young star?

AdamSmith has several things That sometimes get him down: Hubbard, Paul, and Constantine, And Helen Gurley Brown.

I learned that, as soon as one Benjamin Nicholas thread dies down, OZ will start up another one.

In the age of shorthand texting and auto-correcting software, I don't think spelling is as important as it was in my salad days. Back then, it wasn't as hard to separate the well-educated from the not-so-well-educated, and most folks put some effort into placing in the top half. These days, the standards are much more relaxed and I don't view spelling errors the same way I did then. That said, thanks to luv2play, I'm reading Smart Aleck by Howard Teichmann, erstwhile English professor at Barnard College, and was rather proud of myself for spotting a spelling error on page 42. Granted, it was merely the use of 'then' instead of 'than' but, still, the book was published by William Morrow & Company, Inc., who should have been able to spring for a good proofreader to cover for any of Teichmann's own oversights. Apparently, Woollcott himself was no stranger to misspelling when he was a young 'un, yet went on to found the Algonquin Round Table where a goodly share of the early twentieth-century literati rested on their laurels at one time or another. So there's always hope. On balance, I'd have to say that there are qualities more important to me than an escort's spelling abilities. As long as I can find something that looks like the word 'hung' somewhere in the ad, I'm a happy camper.

Perhaps OZ could get a deal on the website.

I think TY's concept is spot on, and the execution is good except perhaps for the guy on the left. He looks a smidge too Stanley Ipkiss for my taste.

Given the never-ending tsuris that dogged Poe throughout his life, I'm surprised his characters got off as easy as they did. With consumption taking his beloved wife (his cousin whom he met when she was nearly nine and married four years later), he was unable to escape his demons even through drink, as a single glass of wine or weak cider was enough to get him snockered. Unable to hold a job for long, he lived well below the poverty line nearly every year of his adult life and his family eventually tired of bailing him out. He wrote in the days before copyright law, with the initial payment for a poem or story usually all he ever got. Others, though, did profit from his work. According to one article, here's Poe's take for a number of his best pieces: MS. Found in a Bottle - $50 (a prize, not a payment) Ligeia - $10 The Haunted Palace - $5 The Fall of the House of Usher - $24 William Wilson - $50 The Murders in the Rue Morgue - $56 The Masque of the Red Death - $12 The Tell-Tale Heart - $10 The Black Cat - $20 The Gold-Bug - $100 (a prize, not a payment, and likely Poe's largest haul) The Purloined Letter - $12 The Raven - $9 (Earning him a fraction of what he made on The Gold-Bug, Poe wrote, “The bird beat the bug, though, all hollow.”) The Cask of Amontillado - $15 Ulalume - $20 Eureka - $14 (an advance, and probably all he ever got) The Bells - $45 Annabel Lee - $10 Frankly, had it been me, I doubt any of my characters would have endured less than getting their kishkas wound around a windlass. (Actually, poor St. Elmo, pictured above, blazed that trail, also enduring other defilements that are best discovered on an empty stomach.)